BRAC project serves 56,000 RMG workers

Sheikh Pappu from Nababganj in Dhaka is learning the operation of overclocking sewing machines at a centre run by Brac in Savar and looks for a job in any apparel factory.

Tabeya Akter came from Jamalpur and she is also learning the operation of plain sewing machines at the centre.

Pappu said it will take a month to be properly trained to run the machine and it will help him to get a job. He came to know of the centre through one of his friends who is already working at an apparel factory after availing of the training.

And Tabeya said, “Factories seek experienced workers. If I can learn the operation of sewing machines from here, then I am able to get a job as soon.”

Like Pappu and Tayeba, several hundred trainees are now developing their skills in Gazipur, Savar and Tongi area under the ‘Empowering the RMG Workers Living in Urban Slums of Dhaka’ project run by Brac. Around 1,800 unskilled workers get training from the centres and now working in the different factories, according to Brac.

Barc said that under this project they providing the RMG workers with six services through One-stop Service Centres and already there are 56,127 beneficiaries of this project.

Alongside developing skills, Brac is providing primary health and nutrition service, legal aid service, financial inclusion service, and online health legal and psychosocial support.

Brac said 38,687 garments workers and their families get healthcare support under this project with a nominal fee or free of cost. They also gave legal support to 3,906 workers and 11,595 workers also got financial support where Brac provides a 50 per cent premium.

Dr Jebun Nessa Nur, a physician at the medical unit of the service centre at Savar said, “On an average, I receive 10-20 patients every day and most of them are garment workers. Around 50 per cent of them are suffering from back pain. On Fridays, the numbers of patients rise to 50.”

“We are providing them with all kinds of medicine free of cost and some poor people of the locality also come here and we provide them with treatment,” She said.

Brac's program manager Sk Mojibul Huq, who oversees the project, said, “We have memorandums of understanding with 29 factories under this project and after developing skill, these factories hire workers from us.”

He said the project was now in an extension period but they hope, the garment factory owners and the government will set up similar One-Stop Service Centres for the workers.